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Lynnox Davis
Pratt
UWRT 1102
04/27/2015

Apocalypse vs. Now: Grieving

I was sitting on my couch watching the previous episodes of The Walking Dead and I
realized that the earlier deaths werent taken as hard as the deaths in the most recent episodes. At
first I thought that the new producer was just trying to be more dramatic and trying to make it
seem like the characters would grieve the same way that normal people grieve in todays world,
but then I thought more about it and realized the more recent episodes, the characters have seem
more and more deaths, and the more deaths they see the more crucial the grief is, like Maggie for
example, she lost all of her family members and up until Beth she seemed pretty well kept. Then
I thought if theyve seen so much death wouldnt they get use to the fact that somebody is going
to die sooner than later. This made me realize that not everybody grieves the same way or by the
book.
This made me wonder, has anybody really thought about how the grief process would be
different when the world goes to shit? How would people react when a possible apocalypse
happens and everybody starts to lose their loved ones? Would the process of grief be different
since the circumstances are different? Or will people be the same people and grieve that same. To
go more in depth and get closer to the answer I decided to analysis the characters of the TV
series The Walking Dead since thats the closest Ill ever get to being somewhat accurate of
how people grieve during this time. For those who dont know the concept of the TV series and
think that they are just about zombies walking around and killing people, let me be the first to

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tell you that you are absolutely wrong. Zombies at this point of the 5th season are almost
completely irrelevant to me. Its the story behind all of the blood and guts.
Grief by definition is to have deep sorrow or sadness mostly caused by someones death.
Another term that people use often is bereavement. The term bereavement is used to describe
the reaction to loss, the loss itself, and as an experience more generally (Raphael 45).
Throughout life as we all know, people die and we lose some people that we care about dearly.
Bereavement is mostly another term for grief but for some reason its used for more serious
situations or maybe even on a more official term. But grieving as a whole depends on the person
as I stated previously.

Background
The Walking Dead is originally a comic book series turned into an AMC TV show that
started in 2010. The show is about the apocalyptic world after a worldwide virus out break and it
focuses of group of people that take a journey and try to survive through the obstacles that are
put in front of them. Yes its about the zombies eating people and all that nasty stuff but thats not
what Im here for. The main characters that went through the most or worse process of grief was
Rick and Carl because Lori died (well talk about that later), Maggie because she lost basically
all of her family, Carol when she lost her daughter Sofia, and Sasha because her significant other,
Bob, and her brother died. All of the other characters had grief but they seemed more put
together than the four characters I listed were.

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Rick and Carl

As I went about my research I realized that I couldnt remember a lot of the details that
happened in the first seasons so of course I proceeded to walk the earlier episodes to refresh my
memory. To touch base on Rick and Carl, Lori was Ricks wife and Carls mother. In the first
season Lori thought that Rick died because Shane (Ricks former best friend and partner) told her
that he didnt make it so she proceeded to pursuit comfort from Shane. After she found out that
Rick was indeed still alive she left Shane and continued to be with Rick like nothing happened.
Long story short Lori became pregnant and in the third season Lori went into labor while they
were living in the prison and Maggie had to perform a C-Section but Lori bled to death and Carl
had to shoot her in the head so that she would come back as a walker (zombie). After her death
Rick technically did start the normal grieving process like regular people in todays world would
after their spouse died, its just that he went through those stages and then some. In our world
people have come up with stages in the grieving process. For example according to Axelrod,
there are five stages of loss and grief: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and
then acceptance. The denial and isolation stage is basically just what it says the person going
through this would most of the time deny that fact that their loved one is no longer with them and
then essentially disappear mentally or even some times physically and for Rick it was both. After
He found out that Lori died, Rick disappeared mentally and physically into the parts of the prison
that nobody was aloud in because it was overrun by the walkers. While he isolated himself he
then took his anger by killing a bunch of the walkers (stage 2). Mentally, he then went off the
deep end and started to see Lori and started to talk to imaginary people over the phone.
Hallucination grieving isnt uncommon in todays world, its just uncommon for people within
Ricks age range.

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82% of the subjects at 1 month, 71% of the subjects at 3 months, and 52% of the subjects at 12
months experienced illusions and/or hallucinations of the deceased spouse, which were
generally experienced as pleasant and helpful.
In the quote above, John Grohol explains that overtime hallucinations that people experience
disappear and that they are usually unfrightening and helpful experience. In Ricks case it didnt
help him let go of her like he could have. I held him back in a way and made him soft in a time
where everybody in the camp needed him. Loris death broke down Rick in many ways to where
he wanted to change his ways completely when he came to an acceptance that she was gone.
Meanwhile Carl is going through it as well because he was the one that head to actually
put a bullet in his mothers head. Erik Erikson expressed his idea of industry versus inferiority
whereas the teenage feels that they need for feel needed. For example Carl felt the need to
become less inferior and needed to be useful within the group. Yes her death was tragic but Carl
grew and matured because of it. They become capable of looking at things from the other
persons perspective and to see more than one dimension or aspect (Crenshaw 69). Carl felt the
need to step up and take a leading role in the group since his father was preoccupied with his
own bereavement. In our world its a bit different, a child losing one of their parents is a
devastating blow because they lose that support and caring of one of the parents, also the other
parent (Rick) isnt able to support because they are grieving themselves. But in the world that
Carl is in, he doesnt have time to act like your average kid that has distractions like school and
friends his own age to remind him that there are other things in life, instead he has to cope with it
on his own and almost keep it to himself since he doesnt have that luxury.

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Maggie
As I went through more episodes, I realized some people it takes a bit of death
experiences to really get to them, this is Maggie all the way. In the second season the farm that
everybody was living on got run over by a swarm of walkers and Maggies step mother, and
cousin died in the commotion. But she seemed to keep is together because she just established a
serious relationship with Glenn and she still had her sister, Beth, and her father Hershel. Having
family and around and surrounding yourself with them is one of the better ways to cope with
death which is why I think that Maggie kept herself together so long. Even after her dad died she
had her mini break down but she had her sister to reassure her that their dad would have wanted
them to keep moving and to stick together to survive. But when her Beth died after she had gone
missing for a while and they thought that she was returning but instead got shot. This pushed
Maggie over the edge and in a since she went into a deep depression because of the fact that all
of her family members were gone. Even though she was pushed to the edge any other person in
todays world would have broken down way before she did because I believe that we arent built
to endure that much loss in such a short amount of time. Yes now we have resources to help cope
with the deaths of loved ones more than she has but because of the situation again, she never
really had time to stop and think and really grieve over those that shes lost.

Carol
Kind of wondering why I didnt start off with Carol because shes my favorite character
in the series. In todays world some people benefit in some way of a death of a loved one like
those who were abused (Carol) or even just help them open their eyes to the rest of the world. In
the first season of the show Carol was a very weak and vulnerable woman that was in an abusive

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relationship. Once her husband died she was released in a small way which would have been the
same in the world today because she was finally away from all the abuse that he was putting her
through. The main difference between her grief and the grief that we would see now is that she
basically bashed his head in I guess to get back at him or something which now that would most
definitely wouldnt be acceptable. If somebody wouldve done that then theyd be on the news or
something.
In my opinion, Carols daughters death was what brought her over the edge. In season
two when she lost her daughter and found out that she was dead and turned into a walker is when
the bad ass Carol stepped out into the world. To me she became tough with good reason and she
realized that things that nobody wanted to do needed to be done. But if a woman in the real
world lost their child it wouldve been a whole different ball park. Usually people get to surround
themselves with family or continuously cry until the pain went away but Carol didnt have that
luxury. In the beginning she was dragging around and basically pitying herself but when people
started to treat her as a liability instead one of their equal she realized that she didnt have that
luxury to grief like normal people and she realized that she had to start using those skills she
used even before the virus to take care of herself. Some people in todays world also become
more wise and strong minded as they get over their grief of a loved one. Yes Carol sometimes
went a bit over board and went the extreme routes to solve problems lie setting people of fire and
killing children and it was accepted after a while because her intensions werent from her grieve.
She didnt lash out instead she kept to herself and let people think whatever they wanted to think.
If Carol wouldve lost her daughter before the world basically ending I think that she wouldve
became weaker than she was in the first season but because she basically didnt have time to

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grieve and really sit down and face the fact that she didnt have any blood family around her
anymore she focused that energy on her survival skills which is why I absolutely LOVE Carol.

Sasha
Along with Rick, Sasha went off the deep end when she lost her brother and her
significant other, Bob. No she didnt start seeing people but she started putting herself in
extremely dangerous situations. Her comparison would be somebody that would have suicidal
thoughts. Sashas grieving would be the closest to the real persons grief nowadays because
during those stages research shows that a lot of people tend to shut themselves from the world
around them and deny any help from those who want to help. This would be a problem in the
apocalyptic world because she doesnt have that luxury to be so reckless since shes in certain
circumstances that would put other people in danger as well. This first started when Bob got bit
and died and she couldnt do what she needed to do to prevent him from becoming a walker. She
felt like she needed to be strong enough to where she didnt need any help from anybody but her
brother still stuck by her side and reassured her that he was there whenever she needed him
which is what a lot of people do when a loved one dies in this world. When her brother died,
thats when she went off the deep end almost equivalent to Rick and gain peoples concern. For
those in todays world suicidal thoughts is more on the extreme side of grief. This is because
there are different ways to calm reassure that the death doesnt lie in your hands. Somebody in
todays world takes a great amount of time to get to what is called complicated grief. According
to Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, complicated grief is a bereavement reaction in which
acute grief is prolonged, causing distress and interfering with functioning. Since Sasha was

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exposed to so much death of people close to her in such a short amount of time, she didnt have
that prolonged time that a regular person would have to turn that acute grief into complicated
grief.
This past season losing her family pushed her towards a kind of depression in my
opinion. , research indicates that women respond in such a way that prolongs their feelings of
stress more so than men, increasing the risk for depression (Sutton 127). Now Im not saying
shes going through depression because shes a woman and they arent as strong as men because
thats not the case, look at Carol. Im saying that woman are indeed more emotional as a lot of
studies show and Sasha went into a mini depression. Some signs and symptoms of depression
according to Amy Sutton, are sadness, which is the more obvious signs, helpless, anxious,
irritable, and many more. One of the signs that stood out more to me was Sasha being irritable.
Over anything she would seem like she was irritated or she would lash out towards people and
assume that people are going to automatically pity her. This also led to her putting herself in
dangerous situations like trying to kill all the walkers in the area by herself. One who has
experiences loss may feel the need to gain control of the situation to gain control of their lives
(Cleiren 143). She felt like she had to do everything herself to prove to herself that she wasnt
weak or something I honestly will never know. Someone in todays world would probably do the
same thing but of course it wouldnt be to such extreme values, it would be something small
compared to what she was trying to do like somebody trying to rebuild a car by themselves or
cleaning a mansion in one day by themselves, horrible comparisons but I suppose you get the
point. Sashas reaction to everything is more human or soft compared to everyone elses and
that makes her look pathetic in the show because shes the one that has close emotional actions to
the world we live in today.

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Different People Same Grief, Different Process

I understand that everybody thinks differently. I understand the saying strong minds
think alike, but Ive never thought that everybody thinks the same way about grieving over a
love one because not everyone is the same. We all are different people in every way shape of
form so why do people try to pin point a way to grieve? Why are there even Stages to
Grieving? Doing my research and watching all the previous episodes of the TV series was an
enlightening experience and it made me think of my own grieving process and it also reminded
me that not even one person grieves the same way over different people. The differences between
the world within The Walking Dead and the world we have now arent too different. Yes in the
details the characters in the show dont have the same luxury as those that are walking around
now but as a whole people will always be people and just because they dont grieve a certain
way doesnt mean that its bizarre or more savage in anyway. Ive learned that you always have
to look at the situation and the surrounding factors to be able to compare everything. Because if
these people wouldve lost their loved ones in todays world now I truly believe that they
wouldve acted the same just not as extreme.

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Work Cited
Attig, Thomas. How We Grieve. Oxford: Oxford University Inc., 1996
Print
Cleiren, Marc. Bereavement and Adaptation. Hemisphere Publishing Company, 1993
Print
Crenshaw, David. Bereavement. New York City: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1990
Print
DeLong, Ty. "Stages of Grief in The Walking Dead." Ty DeLong. 24 Feb. 2013. Web. 9 Mar.
2015
Grohol, John M. "Grief Brings Out Hallucinations, Illusions." World of Psychology. N.p., n.d.
Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Harvey, John and Miller, Eric. Loss and Trauma: General and Close Relationship Perspectives.
Routledge, 2000. Print
Iglewicz, Alana and Lanouette, Nicole. Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief.
Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. Les Laboratoires Servier, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Sherr, Lorraine. Death, Dying and Bereavement. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1989
Print
Sutton, Amy. Depression Sourcebook. Omnigraphics, 2012
Print
"Walking Dead Wiki." Walking Dead Wiki. N.p., 2006. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

The Walking Dead. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2010. Film.